An official announcement on the wedding date and venue is expected by the end of this week, but the couple are understood to have expressed their personal preference during talks with royal advisers.

Miss Middleton made a private visit to the abbey yesterday evening after a series of meetings with St James’s Palace.

A palace spokesman said: “She met staff at the abbey which she visited in order to consider it as an option for the wedding. No decision has yet been taken on the venue.”

The Prince returned to RAF Valley on Anglesey last night and will return to work as a search and rescue helicopter pilot today, after leaving his staff to thrash out details of a date and rubber-stamp the venue.

Senior royal sources said there was “still a lot of work to be done” before an announcement could be made, but the couple are understood to have settled on Westminster Abbey, where the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were married and where the funeral of the Prince’s mother was held in 1997.

Tom Bradby, the ITN correspondent who conducted the couple’s first television interview, said yesterday he had been told their first choice of date had been in March.

Insiders said it had been ruled out as “too soon”, but dates in April and May are among those being considered. “The date is the trickiest part to organise,” said one source. “It could take days to make sure all the right people are available on a particular date, and that the date doesn’t clash with anything else on the calendar, either here or abroad.

“It’s still too early to say exactly when and where the wedding will be, as we could still hit an unexpected snag and find out we’re back to square one if there is a clash of dates.”

If, for any reason, Westminster Abbey proves problematic, the wedding will take place at St Paul’s Cathedral, the only other venue under consideration and the scene of the Prince of Wales’s wedding to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.

Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, the private secretary to Prince William, has been put in overall charge of organising the wedding, in close co-operation with the Lord Chamberlain’s office, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and Westminster Council.

A royal source stressed that the Prince and Miss Middleton will have the final say on the details and it will be “very much their day”.

The Queen and the Prince of Wales are said to be “mindful of the economic situation” but also want the wedding to be “enjoyable for everybody” and provide a boost to the nation. It is understood both will contribute towards the cost of the wedding, although the palace said no final decisions have been taken.

Mr Lowther-Pinkerton, 50, will plan the wedding with the help of Helen Asprey, the Prince’s Personal Secretary, and Lt Col Andrew Ford, the Comptroller of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office at Buckingham Palace, who is responsible for ceremonial occasions. The Government will establish a committee to coordinate security arrangements.